Our Story
The Dudamel Foundation was founded in 2012 by conductor Gustavo Dudamel with the goal of transforming the world through art, culture, and music. Co-chaired by Dudamel and his wife, actress and director María Valverde, the Foundation pursues the mission to expand access to music and the arts for young people by providing tools and opportunities to shape their creative futures.
Our Values & Beliefs
We believe that access to art and music is a fundamental human right.
We believe that art and music create a more just and peaceful society.
We believe that the opportunity to play an instrument is a gift of infinite power.
We believe that young people of all economic and social backgrounds should have access to art and beauty.
We believe that music encourages focus and discipline, respect for others, a spirit of collaboration, and the kind of values that make us all better global citizens and promote social justice.
We believe that music and culture give every individual their own unique identity and destiny.
We believe that young people across the world deserve opportunities to discover and make music and art on their own terms.
We believe every young person deserves the opportunity to live their dreams.
“Music has to be recognized as an agent of social development, in the highest sense because it transmits the highest values – solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion.”
Our Inspiration
Maestro José Antonio Abreu, a builder of dreams
Maestro José Antonio Abreu and Gustavo Dudamel.
Maestro José Antonio Abreu was an influential teacher, entrepreneur, conductor, manager, and builder of dreams and possibilities. Maestro Abreu believed in the achievement of a common goal, with mysticism and joy, to form highly-motivated multidisciplinary teams, and his endless curiosity always searched for new possibilities for self-improvement and vitality.
In 1975, Maestro Abreu set forth on his dream to provide free music and arts education for all the children of Venezuela. Starting with a small group of just eleven young musicians in an underground car park, his vision grew to become El Sistema Nacional de Orquestas y Coros Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, known globally as El Sistema, a vast network of orchestras, choirs, modules, special education programs, nuclei, music schools, and musical instrument workshops, that serves over one million young people, mostly from low-income social strata, throughout the country every day.
“For many of the children that we work with, music is practically the only way to a dignified social destiny. Poverty means loneliness, sadness, anonymity. An orchestra means joy, motivation, teamwork, the aspiration to success. It is a big family which is dedicated to harmony, to those beautiful things which only music brings to human beings.”
Today, under the motto “Tocar y luchar” (play and fight), El Sistema is dedicated to the pedagogical, occupational, and ethical justice of children and youth, through instruction and the collective practice of music. It is an institution open to all of society, whose high concept of musical excellence contributes to the integral development of the human being, and it serves the most vulnerable groups in the country, both due to their demographic characteristics and socioeconomic situation. El Sistema is linked to the community through exchange, cooperation and the cultivation of transcendental values that influence transformation of children, young people and families. It is an opportunity for personal intellectual, spiritual, social and professional development.
Our Team
The Dudamel Foundation and its co-chairs, Gustavo Dudamel and María Valverde, collaborate with an international network of young artists, teachers, innovators, thinkers, musicians, public figures, philanthropists, and institutions to create a more just and peaceful society.